


Dress-Up

by oswhine



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-26
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-05-29 07:58:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6365755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oswhine/pseuds/oswhine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>prompt: You’ve got a date tonight and you asked for advice on what to wear but I’m so in love with you and damn you look good in the outfit I picked out for you (from here: http://nerds-are-cool.tumblr.com/post/133544218971/if-youre-struggling-for-au-ideas-take)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dress-Up

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry I haven't posted in a while! the combination of university and lack of inspiration is killer. Enjoy this! (and I know the title is awful but I couldn't think of a better one)

Angie was curled up like a cat at the end of her bed, naked, reading a script, her lips moving, tasting the words, when there was a knock at the door. 

She groaned, yelled “Coming!” and rolled off the bed, stretching lazily. There was a second knock. “Alright!” Angie grumbled, grabbing her robe from where she’d tossed it on a chair earlier that evening. She primed her face into a snarl as she opened the door, ready to sharply dismiss whoever stood waiting out there. 

It was Peggy. 

“Oh, hey, English. What can I do for ya?” Angie’s lips untwisted. But Peggy had caught the expression. She always noticed the small things that other people’s gazes slid over. 

“I’m sorry, Angie - am I interrupting something?” 

She was uncharacteristically nervous, her smile faltering. She seemed unsure what to do with her hands - one moment one was touching her ear, the other, tapping a beat against her thigh, the next, she’d weaved her fingers together, like a child about to recite “here is the church.” 

“Nothing that is more important than you. What’s on your mind?” Angie placed a reassuring hand on Peggy’s arm. 

Peggy smiled. Was it because of Angie’s touch? “Well, actually, Angie, I have a date tonight, and I was wondering if you could help me out? We’re going to the theatre and I have no idea what to wear. I thought you might, well, know about those things.” 

“Well, sure. I’ll be over in a jiff. Just let me put something on.” She winked at Peggy and regretted it when Peggy smiled uncomfortably and looked down, her eyelashes brushing her cheek. With anyone else, Angie wouldn’t have cared. _But Peggy was different_ , she thought as she closed the door. She was an electric shock in a still world. She was a vibrant tropical flower blooming in field full of dandelions. She was the first glimpse of the sea when you had never seen it before, that tingling of excitement and energy. 

Angie pulled on a pair of casual slacks and a top, fluffed her hair in the mirror and bared her teeth at herself in a savage grin. Satisfied, she went down the hall to Peggy’s room. 

A spectrum of dresses were displayed in a fan on Peggy’s bed, almost entirely covering it. Velvet and satin and cotton and organza all mixed together, plaid and polka dots, a colour for every shade of sky at every time of day or change of weather. 

“You see my dilemma,” Peggy said, stepping out of her closet, holding a golden dress up in front of her. She studied herself in the mirror for a moment, smoothing out the fabric. “No? No.” She slid the hanger back onto the rail in the closet and sighed deeply, digging her fingers into her thick hair. 

“Peg, the first thing you have to learn about getting ready is that it isn’t a chore or an anxiety. It’s a time to have fun and embrace yourself. Let’s play some music to set the mood.” Angie switched on the radio to an upbeat jazz station and shimmied towards Peggy, intoxicated by the scent of her perfume, which permeated the room.

“Angie, I have to go in ten minutes,” Peggy said exasperatedly. But she was smiling. 

Angie caught Peggy’s hands in hers and spun her across the room, Peggy’s skirt swishing around her legs. She shook her head, trying to hide her smile. 

“Now, first things first. What is the play you’re going to see about?” Angie asked, jiving with her. 

“It’s Oklahoma.” Peggy rolled her eyes. 

“Do you have any calico dresses?” Angie teased. “You’d look absolutely darling with your hair in pigtails.” Their shoes tapped out a rhythm on the floor. 

“Please, I have more self-respect than that.” 

“So I guess overalls are out too?” 

“Definitely. Anyway, I’m watching the show, not participating in it.” 

“Ah, Peg, the audience is as much a part of the performance as the actors are,” Angie said solemnly, spinning the other girl away from her. 

“Just tell me what I have to wear,” Peggy said, dropping her hand out of Angie’s. For the time they’d been dancing, Angie had forgotten that soon Peggy would gone, sitting next to a strange man and watching Oklahoma, him maybe trying to sneak an arm around her shoulder. That was Peggy’s power: she was absolutely captivating.

Angie surveyed the dresses spread out on the bed. She’d seen most of them before; each one had a memory attached. The deep plum coloured one Peggy had worn when she’d come in near the end of Angie’s shift one night, obviously exhausted from the shade of the circles under her eyes - they had matched the colour of her dress. She’d sat at the counter and ordered a slice of peach pie and twisted a curl around her finger, and laughed at the lamest joke Angie could think up to tell her. That blue one with the plunging neckline was one of Angie’s favourites, and Peggy seemed to walk taller when she wore it. There was the red dress that Angie had told her she looked like Ava Gardner in, and Peggy had laughed and said she didn’t go to the movies that much, so she wouldn’t know, leading Angie to enthuse about _The Killers_. Peggy came back a few days later, in that printed dress, there, and told her she’d gone out and seen the movie and enjoyed it, and they’d chatted about it together for five wonderfully happy minutes until some asshole demanded that she bring him the coffee he’d ordered, _now_.

Then she spotted one she’d never seen before. A black silk waterfall of a dress. Totally Ava Gardner.

“Try this one,” she said, pushing it at Peggy. 

“Isn’t too fancy for Oklahoma?” She asked, skeptical, running the fabric through her fingers. 

“Trust me, Peg, it doesn’t matter what kind of guy your date is, if he likes baseball or fine art; he’ll love you in this dress.” _I’ll love you in this dress_. The unspoken words settled in Angie’s throat. _I’d love you even if you wearing a paper bag_.

“All right, I’ll try it,” Peggy said, and stepped into the bathroom to put it on. 

Angie sat on the carpet beside the door, seeing as the bed was layered with dresses. To disturb them would be impious. “So, how do you know this guy you’re seeing?” She called. The walls were so thin that she could hear Peggy’s soft breathing and the rustle of fabric. 

“Oh, he’s the cousin of one of the men I work with. It’s a blind date. I doubt it will lead to anything. I mean, he chose _Oklahoma_ for our date.” 

“Aw, it’s not so bad.” There was a happy buzzing inside Angie’s chest. It felt like a beehive had got stuck there, right between her lungs. 

“Yes, but it’s not really my type of thing.” 

Angie heard her zip up the dress and unfolded her legs and stood. 

The door creaked open, and there stood Peggy, a goddess, the black silk hugging her curves. She was Nyx, shadowed by night with stars on the inside, only visible glittering through her eyes, her skin glowing like moonlight. She was more beautiful than Ava Gardner; she was everything. Angie was, for the first time in her life, speechless. 

“What? Am I that hideous?” Peggy asked, laughing. She stepped forward and looked at herself in the mirror, turning this way and that. “Well, you were definitely right about this dress.” 

“Peggy,” Angie finally managed, her voice soft, sounding to her ears unlike herself, “You’re beautiful.” 

And of course, Peggy, with her microscopic senses, picked up on something in her tone. Her eyes met Angie’s in the mirror and then she turned so that they were facing each other. Angie hadn’t realised how close she’d been standing to her until that moment, with their noses almost touching. She could see the dark rim around Peggy’s hazel eyes. 

“Angie,” Peggy whispered, then, unexpected, she leaned forward and kissed her on the mouth. Her lips were sticky with lipstick and the smell of her perfume filled Angie’s head. She felt strangely disconnected, as if she had fallen asleep standing up and this was only a dream, the most beautiful dream. If she was asleep, she didn’t want to wake up. Time seemed to simultaneously speed up and slow down; she could feel the blood rushing to her head. 

“What about your date,” she murmured through the fog that seemed to surround her when Peggy’s lips left hers, “Oklahoma.” 

“I didn’t really want to go anyway.” 

“But - you seemed so anxious to get it all right, to impress him. I don’t get you.” They were still standing so close. 

Peggy looked down, embarrassed. “I was - being selfish, really. I wanted to - I wanted to spend time with _you_.” On that last word, ‘you,’ spoken so differently from the way Peggy normally said it, as if it had a different meaning when it applied to Angie, she looked up again. 

“Oh, English, you are silly,” Angie grinned. The world had hurtled from a blurry numbness to startling clarity. She kissed her this time, her hand cupping Peggy’s cheek. Kissing Peggy was so different from all the other boys she’d known, from nervous high school boys who she’d had to take the initiative with, making them more nervous, to the men who would mash their lips almost territorially against hers in the back seat of their cars. She was that perfect inbetween - she knew what she wanted, but she recognized that Angie had needs too. She actually made Angie feel something other than the disappointed _is this it?_ that had always floated into her mind before. It was like both the thrill of standing on the edge of a cliff and the comfort and sweetness of that first bite of warm apple pie. Plus, her mouth tasted a lot better than theirs. Most importantly, it felt right. 

“I’ve got a better idea of what to do tonight,” Peggy said, after. “Would you like to go see that new Ava Gardner movie?” 

Angie grinned. “There’s nothing I’d like to do more.”


End file.
